INDIANAPOLIS - The future of the Rockport coal-to-gas plant grew murkier Thursday as the chairman of a key state Senate panel pushed back the hearing he'd scheduled to debate Indiana's role in financing the nearly $3 billion project.

The decision comes after hours spent Wednesday trying to craft an amendment to the bill that was to be the subject of the hearing, Senate Utility Committee Chairman Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, told the Courier & Press.

His party's leaders want the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to give another review to the state's 30-year contract to buy the plant's synthetic gas product at a fixed rate and then resell it on the open market. But the contract is currently tied up in court battles, complicating the process. Merritt decided he needed more time to work on the amendment and pushed the hearing back a week.

"I want this to be professional. I want this to be correct," he said. "This is so complicated that I want to do it right, and that's why I'm delaying it."

Had the hearing taken place, it would have been a tussle between New York-based Leucadia National Corp., which is financing the plant, and a group of environmental groups and utility companies led by Vectren Corp.

The developers say the plant — and the prices tied to it, which would make up 17 percent of all Hoosier ratepayers' gas bills — would boost the Indiana coal industry and also guard against instability in the natural gas market.

Opponents, though, say a nationwide shale gas boom has sent natural gas prices tumbling to about $3 per unit, where they've hovered in recent months. They say the deal could lock in higher prices for ratepayers with no protections until the contract's end three decades from now.

The developers' contract with the Indiana Finance Authority was already locked into place, but a tweak ordered by an Indiana appellate court

and made in December has opened the door for Vectren to sue, demanding that utility regulators re-approve the deal.

Opponents have also seized on that opening by lobbying Indiana lawmakers to take a more comprehensive look this year at a deal they approved on a piecemeal basis — especially now that former Gov. Mitch Daniels, the project's top advocate, has left office.

Mike Roeder, Vectren's vice president of government affairs and communications, said he was "disappointed" by the hearing's cancellation.

"I thought we were very close on an amendment that was going to be acceptable to most legislators. We still have over 20 co-authors on the original bill. So we'll respect the chairman's wishes and be back at it next week," he said.

Merritt said he needs to learn more from both sides before deciding how lawmakers ought to go forward. He said he wants to make sure he understands the outcomes that would result from a host of options that lawmakers are considering.

"I want to talk to a lot more people before we do this, and I have not spoken to the Leucadia people ever. As chairman, I think it's my prerogative to learn as much as possible from all different parties before we go any further," Merritt said. "I want to compile the facts and make a good decision."

Senate Bill 510, which is being carried by Sen. Doug Eckerty, R-Yorktown, and was to be the subject of Thursday's hearing, would force the ratepayer protection mechanisms in the contract to be overhauled.

Right now, Leucadia must set aside $150 million to reimburse ratepayers if they've paid higher prices than market rates. But Vectren estimates that's only enough to last a few years.

Eckerty's bill would require a "true-up" — essentially a check to see how the Rockport plant's rates compare to open-market prices — every three years, with those reimbursements being made every time.

Leucadia's top Indiana official, former Daniels aide Mark Lubbers, has called that a naked attempt to kill the entire project.